What's on Your Mind?

As tech companies shell out millions for top AI talent—even reportedly billions—regular rank-and-file employees are left wondering how to get in on the action and land a job in artificial intelligence. One report found that job postings that mention needing at least one AI skill had salaries 28% higher than other jobs, which translates to $18,000 more. Jobs that required two AI skills had a 43% salary jump. To begin with, it’s worth considering where the AI jobs are and how this intersects with your interests and existing skills. Many jobs in AI can roughly be divided into five different categories: researchers engineers business strategists doma…

TikTok has been abuzz with the workplace trend “task-masking”—that is, making yourself look busy so that your boss thinks you’re hard at work. Cue behaviors like pounding hard on the keyboard, always keeping your status to “active,” or walking around the office with your laptop and looking like you have somewhere to be when you don’t. “It’s all show. It’s all performance,” one TikTok user posted. “They could be typing a thousand words a minute, but really be typing nothing,” posted another. Some argue that it’s backlash against return-to-office policies: “Many of these employees, especially Gen Z, feel like their presence doesn’t equal productivity,” a TikTok user sa…

What if the women leaders who were long overlooked are the ones we can’t afford to ignore today. The proverbial career ladder has long been the dominant metaphor for success. For many, it works: a clear, linear climb, one predictable rung at a time. For others, it doesn’t, because the ladder was never built to hold the weight of multiple roles and ambitions. Women, in particular, have mastered a multi-hyphenate model of leadership out of necessity: mother and manager, founder and caregiver, mentor and innovator. What looked “nonlinear” was simply a different kind of training ground, one that creates resilience, adaptability, and perspective. Today’s multi-hyphenat…

As Nvidia’s value has soared—becoming the first public company to hit $4 trillion in market capitalization earlier this year—it’s been pouring money into AI startups. Its venture arm, NVentures, is also backing less expected bets. The latest: Redwood Materials, the EV battery recycling company, which just raised $350 million in a new funding round. Redwood launched in 2017 with the aim to build a U.S. supply chain for critical metals by pulling materials like cobalt and lithium from used EV batteries. But the company spun up another major business this year—using secondhand EV batteries as a low-cost form of energy storage at data centers. “I think people misn…

As tech companies race to build more AI data centers, your electric bill is probably going up. And while some companies are prioritizing adding clean energy to accommodate their intensive demands, climate pollution is also climbing as utilities turn to gas or even coal to support our chatbot habits. But there might be another way for new data centers to get the enormous amount of energy they plan to use. A recent report from the nonprofit Rewiring America suggests that instead of building new power plants, hyperscalers—the Big Tech companies whose data centers provide the backbone to cloud computing—could help homeowners install new solar panels, batteries, and heat p…

The market for obesity and diabetes treatments remains scorching hot, funneling billions in sales to Eli Lilly and fueling a bidding war over another drugmaker. Lilly said Thursday that its top-selling drugs, Mounjaro and Zepbound, brought in more than $10 billion combined during the recently completed third quarter. That made up over half of the drugmaker’s $17.6 billion in total sales. Separately, Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk announced plans to buy Metsera Inc. in a deal that could be worth up to $9 billion. That came more than a month after U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc. made a nearly $5 billion bid for Metsera, which has no drugs on the market but is developi…

In the early days of the internet, collectors traded rare whiskey and wine on eBay alongside Beanie Babies and vintage sneakers. But then, in 1999, six months after closing down firearm sales, eBay announced they would ban the sale of alcohol and tobacco products as well. “As a general rule, these laws are just so complex and contradictory, that we just decided that in the best interest of our users to prevent that situation from ever occurring,” then-spokesman Kevin Pursglove said. More than 25 years later and almost a century after the end of Prohibition, the regulatory environment is no less forgiving, and the resale of spirits online has been scattered acros…

On a scorching hot Saturday in San Antonio, dozens of teachers traded a day off for a glimpse of the future. The topic of the day’s workshop: enhancing instruction with artificial intelligence. After marveling as AI graded classwork instantly and turned lesson plans into podcasts or online storybooks, one high school English teacher raised a concern that was on the minds of many: “Are we going to be replaced with AI?” That remains to be seen. But for the nation’s 4 million teachers to stay relevant and help students use the technology wisely, teachers unions have forged an unlikely partnership with the world’s largest technology companies. The two groups don’t always se…

Early in my career, I was fortunate to cross paths with a mentor who changed how I saw design—and myself. He ran a small studio whose influence reached far beyond its size. He led with a quiet confidence and quick wit, showing how intelligence and humility could coexist in the creative process. I was passionate about the craft, but there was still so much more to learn about the tools, and about business. He taught me how to infuse storytelling into design. How to navigate constraints. How to bring meaning to every project, not just the ones that sparked instant excitement. He reminded me that creativity thrives on play and curiosity, and that if you lose joy in the proce…

Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN and HBO, announced Tuesday that it is up for sale after receiving unsolicited interest from multiple potential buyers. The news adds a new wrinkle to an already-planned shakeup at the media giant. In June, WBD announced plans to cleave the company into two separate publicly traded companies. The company’s streaming and studio brands—which include HBO, HBO Max, Warner Bros. Pictures, and New Line Cinema—would be part of Warner Bros., while Discovery Global would oversee its cable networks that include CNN, TNT Sports, and Discovery. Though it’s not abandoning plans to split the company, WBD indicated in its announce…

Nostalgia has been one of the dominant themes of 2025, from AI-generated scenes of the good ol’ days to the resurgence of analog hobbies. Retro, a friends-only photo journal, recently launched a new feature which taps into this mindset, turning your camera roll into a personal time machine. The Rewind feature, launched this week, resurfaces camera roll memories from this time last year. These are private to you unless you choose to share with others. “People are taking more photos than ever but they’re actually doing less with them. It’s almost as if those photos go into the ether,” Nathan Sharp, cofounder and CEO of Retro, tells Fast Company. “We buil…

The Coca-Cola Co. said sales of premium beverages and mini cans helped boost its third-quarter results despite tepid demand in the U.S. and elsewhere. The Atlanta beverage giant said Tuesday it continues to see a divergence among consumers in North America and Europe, with higher-income buyers opting for its more expensive brands like Smartwater, Topo Chico, and Fairlife, while middle- and lower-income consumers are under more pressure. Henrique Braun, Coke’s chief operating officer, said the company has focused on affordability by shrinking package sizes and leaning into sales of mini cans. Earlier this month, Coke announced it will sell individual, 7.5-ounce min…

Leadership is not a title or a job description. It is the daily practice of turning authority into trust and presence into influence, according to renowned psychologist, University of Exeter Professor and former NBA player John Amaechi, OBE. Amaechi argues that leadership lives in ordinary moments: how you listen, the precision of your words, and the discipline of reflection. “Being a great leader is not magic,” Amaechi explains to me, “but rather the consistent choice to act with clarity and intention that helps others feel enabled, not stifled.” Too often, people think of leadership as something to perform when the spotlight is on them. Amaechi says, “In reality, th…

Today’s workforce often spans four—sometimes five—generations. Gen Z, millennials, and baby boomers bring distinct experiences and expectations that enrich organizations yet complicate workplace design. The core challenge is building physical and cultural environments that serve these different—and sometimes conflicting—needs. The stakes are high. Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace shows global engagement falling to 21%, the second decline in 12 years. Engagement drops fastest when generational needs go unmet. Nearly 60% of employers say their workforce spans four or five generations, and in a recent AARP study, 83% said “creating a more multigenerational wor…

Netflix missed Wall Street’s third-quarter earnings targets because of an unexpected expense from a dispute with Brazilian tax authorities, while it offered a forecast a touch ahead of Wall Street projections for the rest of the year. The report failed to impress investors accustomed to fast-paced growth from the streaming video pioneer. Shares of Netflix, which had risen 39% this year ahead of the earnings report, fell 6.3%, to $1,163.80, in after-hours trading on Tuesday. Netflix posted net income of $2.5 billion and diluted earnings per share of $5.87 for July through September, a period when the animated K-Pop Demon Hunters became the most-watched movie in Net…

Seeking a flatter management structure is a leadership trend you could compare to fashion’s craze for skinny jeans—trendy yesterday, forgotten tomorrow, then back in fashion again before you know it. Recently, big tech firms like Meta, Microsoft, and Google made headlines for cutting management positions to lower costs and increase productivity—turning some of their workloads over to AI tools. But a new survey from San Francisco-based workplace communications outfit Firstup shows that eliminating too many management jobs can have some unexpected effects on the way your teams work, sometimes damaging employee engagement, which undermines productivity. This is definitel…

The obesity rate in the U.S. is continuing its downward trend. The news comes three years after obesity rates hit a record high. In 2022, almost four out of 10 (39.9%) of Americans met the threshold for the classification, however, the number first began to shrink in 2023. Now, the rate of obesity is now down to 37%, according to new data from Gallup. The new findings are based on data from three nationally representative surveys of 16,946 U.S. adults. And while the numbers don’t seem massively significant, the report found that those three percentage points add up to around 7.6 million Americans who no longer meet the criteria for being obese. According to the n…

When teachers rely on commonly used artificial intelligence chatbots to devise lesson plans, it does not result in more engaging, immersive, or effective learning experiences compared with existing techniques, we found in our recent study. The AI-generated civics lesson plans we analyzed also left out opportunities for students to explore the stories and experiences of traditionally marginalized people. The allure of generative AI as a teaching aid has caught the attention of educators. A Gallup survey from September 2025 found that 60% of K-12 teachers are already using AI in their work, with the most common reported use being teaching preparation and lesson planning…

There has been a lot of chatter about A24’s takeover of the Cherry Lane Theatre. What might seem a quirky side project for the independent studio known for Lady Bird, Uncut Gems, and Hereditary is in reality a sharp, shrewd move in an industry facing disruption and streaming fatigue. Live performance is one of the few cultural experiences that can’t be automated, replicated, or played on demand. By stepping into theater, A24 is hedging against an AI-saturated future while also deepening its cultural footprint. When the deal was first announced in late 2023, the scuttlebutt was rooted in practicalities. “It’s all about creative synergies,” was one refrain. “They’re divers…